A SOUNDTRACK FOR THE PROTEST OF GENOCIDE (LOS ANGELES)
MLive.com
?/base/national-2/124060124528210.xml&storylis t=national
April 24 2009
Michigan
LOS ANGELES — The feelings flow out of his heart, through his fingers
and onto the strings of his guitar.
Sometimes, said Armenian American songwriter Shant Bismejian, he feels
anger over Turkish denial of the genocide of his people in the early
20th century. Sometimes he feels sadness over stories of children
forced to witness the massacre of their parents. And sometimes he
feels joy that the Armenian people survived the atrocities and rebuilt
a nation.
Bismejian, 22, expected all of those emotions to flow Friday night
as he and his band, Visa, were to perform a concert to memorialize
the Armenian genocide, one of several commemorative events planned
in the Los Angeles area.
The concert, called Silence the Lies, Rock the Truth, scheduled at
the Troubadour in West Hollywood, also was to feature other Armenian
American musicians and poets in what activists say reflects a growing
youth movement to raise awareness about the genocide.
The Armenian genocide of 1915 to 1918 claimed the lives of about 1.2
million Armenians under the Ottoman Empire, which became the modern
republic of Turkey. The Turkish government disputes that a genocide
took place.
Band members say they hoped to raise awareness among young people
through music.
The band planned to play as its opening number "Adana," an Armenian
folk song that laments the suffering during the genocide, .
"There’s nothing wrong with speeches, but music is the easiest way to
connect to people because everyone can relate to music," said Alex
Khatcherian, a 22-year-old University of California, Santa Barbara,
student and bass player.
The band, which plays a mix of world music featuring hints of rock,
Mideastern rhythms and traditional Armenian instruments, such as the
flutelike "duduk," has attracted fans beyond the Armenian community.
Setareh Mortazavi, a 21-year-old University of California, Los
Angeles, senior of Persian heritage, said she was captivated by the
band’s music the first time she heard it a year ago. That prompted
her to attend Visa’s genocide memorial concert last year and do her
own historical research on the massacres. She then joined a protest
against the refusal to recognize the genocide.
"Usually political speeches seem a bit boring," Mortazavi said. "The
entertainment aspect is more effective to get non-Armenians interested
in the issue."
Arek Santikian of the Armenian Youth Federation’s Western regional
office in Glendale, north of downtown, said bands such as Visa and
System of a Down, which also addressed the Armenian genocide and
other human rights issues before breaking up two years ago, reflected
growing youth activism in raising awareness. The federation’s members
have grown from 350 to 500 in the last decade and have staged several
events, including a 215-mile march from Fresno to Sacramento in 2005,
a five-day Fast for Remembrance in 2007 and an 11-mile bike ride in
the San Fernando Valley scheduled on Saturday.
Hakan Tekin, Turkey’s consul general in Los Angeles, urged Armenian
Americans to focus instead on progress in Turkish-Armenian relations,
illustrated by an agreement this week on a framework to normalize
relations.
"We hope especially that the Armenian community in California supports
these talks rather than get involved in activities that instigate
hate and poison the minds of young Armenians with what we see as
distorted history," Tekin said.
(Optional add end)
Visa was started in 2000 by K’noup Tomopoulos, a native of Greece. He
moved to Los Angeles in 2002 and eventually hooked up with his current
band of nine members, five of whom are ethnic Armenians. Tomopoulos
said Greece’s history with the Ottoman Empire, which ruled his native
land for four centuries, has helped him connect with Armenian pain.
"Getting out the message about the manslaughter that took place in
1915, which is so important to Armenians, is also important to me,"
he said.
Bismejian said his family history inspires his music. His grandfather
and great-grandmother were sent by the Turks on a death march to the
Der Zor desert, where mass killings took place, he said, but they
escaped and moved to Syria. The emotions triggered by those stories
influence nearly all of the songs he writes.
But there are also songs of joy. He calls one of them "Look at Us Now"
because every time he plays it he thinks:
"After everything that happened, we’re still here and look how strong
we are," he said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
